


Eskimo Kisses and Discarded Messages

by Reshma



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eskimo Kisses, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I Tried, Irondad, Major Character Injury, No Beta, Other, Parent Tony Stark, Please Kill Me, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, We Die Like Men, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:18:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reshma/pseuds/Reshma
Summary: They're all discarded messages, forgotten voicemails to leave or misplaced sticky note reminders.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: A lot of my works are inspired by vague sentences in the summary (This one, Blind Hope and Bah Humbug) because I have no regard for plot.
> 
> Today's was: Eskimo kisses.

Somewhere in upstate New York, a pin could drop in the all encompassing silence that spans across the late night in the Avengers’ facility; and, yet, Tony Stark would be deaf to anyone that isn't the boy that lays in front of him. 

Tony can feel every breath Peter inhales and exhales. His chest rising up and down, his heart pumping blood into his veins and air flooding into his lungs. He can hear the congested snore in the wake his winter blues and lack of thermoregulation. He can hear the soft rustles of his hospital gown shifting as he tosses and turns in a drugged induced sleep. He can hear the silent restlessness behind his face, gears turning in his head over his next chemistry project or add-on to his suit.

But Tony can also hear something else.

But he can hear a disturbance viciously tearing his heart into shreds, like paper strands sharp like glass. He can hear the echoes of average New Yorkers screaming in terror of a war his very existence invites. He can hear the gravel scraping into Iron Man's suit as he dove to the ground to lift civies off the concrete. He can hear the crackling of the team's comms full of panic and chaos.

Regardless, he can hear Peter's scream from earlier that evening louder than anything else.

It was just another day of being an Avenger, a fight too close for comfort and a kid too young to be dealing with the world's woes.

It was a normal mission, the same battles just a different day. Flying HYDRA agents barricading the Bronx from the rest of New York and holding hundreds hostage.

They wanted the Avengers, of course, determined fuckers strong enough to hold off SWAT and the army, but still too weak to do any lasting damage to the team.

The team had been fine, really; Falcon and the War Machine were in the air, helping areas with major damage and civilians; Hawkeye on perimeter and aerial; Bruce was outside of the border, helping with medical support; Natasha and Steve dealt with hostage control; Vision, Barnes, Tony and Wanda were all engaging hostiles.

Iron Man was shielding a pack of office workers on the 27th floor near Melrose when the building began to crumble. It happened too fast and took Tony off guard when the the squeal of brick collapsing, glass cracking and cement shattering hit his eardrums.

Before F.R.I.D.A.Y. even managed to activate his jet repulsors, a flash of red and blue entered Tony's line of sight.

Spider-Man webbed up about five civilians as he crashed through the disintegrating building and flew out before Tony could tell him to get the fuck out of here before I kick your ass and take your suit again. 

(“Yeah, well considering my school was about a second away from complete lockdown mode, I wasn't going to just sit around and wait, Mr. Stark,” Peter spoke breathlessly seconds later at Tony's frustration.)

Tony didn't waste much time after that and grabbed as many people as he could and carried them gracefully for about a few hundred yards. He dropped them swiftly off with Sam and Rhodey.

In the breaking chaos of the streets below, the agents were clearing and the target number was decreasing.

Between the two of them, they had made quick work of getting citizens in the office to safety. Iron Man was sure he'd gotten the very last person when Spider-Man zipped past him to double check the building once more.

Tony was about to lay into him for disobeying his order of get the hell out of Bronx, kid when it happened.

The center of the structure had caved in like a sinkhole and Peter barely had any metal beams to cling to for support with his webs.

It wasn't detected or predicted by either K.A.R.E.N. or F.R.I.D.A.Y., the odds of the whole complex breaking apart beneath his feet and an entire seventy-something floors impaling Spider-Man in the chest with broken glass, titanium frames and wooden splinters.

He can still hear it echoing in his body hours later, when the Iron Man suit peels off and the grime is washed away.

He can hear F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s monotone, scanning for signs of life and almost failing to detect Peter's crumpled figure.

He can hear the bloodcurdling scream from Peter, a mix between insufferable pain and a cut off choked noise that Tony hears vibrating off the walls and in his stomach.

When Tony finds him, he's a few seconds away from becoming spider roadkill. He's the ground, suit torn up, mask ranging off his ears, and there's so much blood, oh god. There's no inch of his body that isn't covered in rubble or the ashes of fire and dust. His eyes are half-lidded and unfocused. There are pieces of debris falling off of his chest, flesh and organs oozing out, as he's trapped underneath asphalt and steel

The building isn't done coming down and he needs to get him out of there now.

“Peter!” Tony's voice is loud and Iron Man is in front of him in a flash, lifting metal away from his crumpled body.

Peter turns his head 90° towards the sound of Tony's voice, strained and confused, eyes scanning blindly with the last of his energy.

“Tony? You hafta’ get outta here.” Peter croaks out as he slurs and begins to sway. He's not coherent and Tony knows the signs of major blood loss when he sees them.

The vibrations of the walls and ceklings are getting too loud and through Tony's faceplate, his sight won't stop shaking.

“Hey, kid.” Tony tries to coo calmly as the suit tries to lift up Peter without injuring anything further and with a limited time window.

“Breathe, okay? I'm going to get you out of here, yeah?”

Tony can see Peter try and breathe but the gesture in itself takes too much energy as Peter slumps further back and stares intensely into Tony's faceplate eyes. 

The only way he can describe Peter's physical state is comparing it too a fly. He looks like when you swat a determined, buzzing fly down hard and it's about to die, twitching and desperation trying to will whatever life is has left in its little body to take over.

He's still under a metal beam and it's probably already impaled several organs; he should really get Cho to send him another blueprint of that cradle in Se-

“Love you, Dad.” He practically wheezes our with a cough and then-

Nothing.

He's completely and utterly still. There's no rise to his chest and his spider emblem is scratched into shreds with blood becoming its outer border.

He can hear the shuffle of reinforced brick walls beginning to give. He can hear Rogers barking orders on comms demanding a status updates. He can hear the sound of War Machine's incoming repulse jets nearby rocketing towards them. He can hear the sirens of the NYPD blaring like bass from an amplified subwoofer.

But he can't hear Peter's heartbeat.

And it dawns to Tony, then and there, in a building on 154th Street, the things he may never hear again.

He'll never hear Peter's nervous laugh at Bruce's compliments about his work in the lab; the electricity of bubbling energy overflowing at Clint's mentions of Star Wars or Alien for team movie night; the quiet hum of his huffs of frustration at his suit specifications malfunctioning again as Tony watches his hunched down form in the workshop with a feathery sort of fondness (No, it’s not maternal nurture complex, thank you very much, Rhodey); his rasps of soreness after training and sparring with Bucky and Steve; his tone of certainty and courage during missions that have already turned south; the sharp intake of breath when Natasha still manages to unexpectedly sneak into his personal space despite his Spidey-sense and Nat being a super, psycho ex-assassin.

He can hear the childlike giggles laced with the reality that he's just a teenager elicited from Wanda's bad Gen Z jokes and peaceful images she smoothly controls into his brain from her time as a child; he can hear Peter's bad impersonation of Vision’s British accent on late night adventures for drive-thru with Sam; he can his light footsteps, limbs barely touching the ceiling as he crawls 20-feet above the floor with the grace of an acrobat when he's been too still for too long and needs to ease the restlessness in his legs.

He can hear Peter's splutters as he flails wildly at the teams embarrassing questions as Rhodey hauls him up on his feet and out the lounge on the community floor to get away from bad mannered, idiotic influences to the kitchen. He can hear his true enthusiasm at plans for the future of S.I.’s clean energy bases and agricultural demand for commodities over dinner with himself, Pepper and Peter; he can hear Pepper's exasperated sighs with mote endearment than she’ll admit when Peter and Tony start arguing over the economic impact of superheroes.

He can hear the somber tone Peter takes on in the rare moments on the compound's rooftop at 3 A.M. when he talks about his parents or Ben, the drifting grief with shadows of desperation for a family at the edges.

It's vicious the way it's all being robbed in front of his very eyes as the building continues to collapse and Tony shields Peter's dying form.

He doesn't think his repulsor boosters have ever been so hot at his feet, blasting energy as Iron Man flies up through the crashing ceiling, reminiscent of a beacon or lighthouse on the horizon a foggy storm.

By the time Tony's flown out the ruins of 154th street in Melrose, F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s defibrillators kicked in and Peter was gasping for breath unconsciously. He landed with Spider-Man in his arms in front of Falcon, Black Widow and Captain America.

He's lucky Bruce was on immediate standby or the kid would be paralyzed or dealing with a delayed spinal cord injury.

Or, you know, Tony's worst nightmare; his kid would be dead.

A child without parents is an orphan; Peter had already hit that level of rock bottom. And yet, Tony feels it in his core at the stark reality of Peter's tango between life and death on this mission with the team; What is a parent without a child? What good are they if their purpose of caregiver, breadwinner and nurturer disappear within the blink of an eye? 

How can they survive the world that will surely eat them alive?

As Peter was rushed away by Quinjet from the streets of the Bronx, Tony stood shell shocked near the militarized perimeter as Rhodey tried to talk him out of his haze. Everything hit Tony in that moment like a train.

He's never told Peter how important he is to the team, how he's more than family and larger than life or how his laughter could fill up a room and his youthfulness could fuel the Avengers for eons. He's never insisted that Spider-Man's spirit is part of what keeps the world going. He hasn't professed that the team could never not want him and that he's the entire team's favorite; that every member wants to give him the world and projects all they never had, hopes and opportunities in the world and dreams, onto him.

He's never uttered it to anyone, be it Pepper of Rhodey, how Peter is the closest thing he has to a son. He's never whispered out the promise of him inheriting the company and being financially set for the rest of his life; he's never gotten around to mentioning that forcing him to prepare two years ahead of graduation for full scholarship to MIT isn't just his way of vicariously making up for lost parent figures, but a prayer that he'll strive to give Peter as much as a normal life as possible.

He's never mentioned that he loves Peter more than anything in the world.

More than his team, his best friend, his fiancée or all the bottles of Jack Daniel's in the world. He's never mentioned that he didn't know it was possible to feel so much hope, fear, anger and pride towards someone outside of Pepper.

They're all discarded messages, forgotten voicemails to leave or misplaced sticky note reminders, until Tony sees the life drain out of Peter's eyes.

May was at his throat in an instant, screaming that Peter was her child and that she'd be damned if Stark thought Spider-Man was going on any mission or patrol anytime soon after today's stunts.

And, of course, shes right. Peter is a child, not a soldier: a boy, not a man.

Truly, he’s just a baby. Someone small, young, arrogantly naive, innocent, blindly brave, and yet, so strong and wise.

Peter is in a hospital room at the compound, already half-healed and no longer bloody. By tomorrow he’ll be restless and bouncing on back on his heels with pent up energy, much to Bruce's stress temperament and last chagrin.

Tony is stretched around his fragile form, curling around his body like a protective shield, an Eden of love and warmth.

He will deny it to his final breath and then some, the actions that follow after he returns to the present from the nightmares turned reality from earlier in the day.

He carefully places his hands on the sides of Peter's cheeks, gently pulling himself close enough to steal the air that Peter breathes.

He bumps his nose softly against Peter's nose, his fading scars and bruises disappearing like a breeze of air, never twitching or contorting.

Tony rubs his nose against Peter's in several Eskimo kisses, tenderly pulling stands of his dry hair that smells of generic shampoo, smoked ash and hospital disinfectant away from his face. He can feel his own butterfly bandage against Pete's face and he envisions how differently today could have ended.

He could be arranging a coffin and writing a eulogy. He could be adding another corpse to the body count of a Stark's legacy. Peter would lie scarily still, a physical oxymoron of a usually jittery and vibrant energy, and be buried into the ground, like something to be hidden or ashamed of.

Tony doesn't realize that he's crying until a clear, iridescent drop of water plops on Peter's left eye bag, dark and puffy. He looks peaceful and soft, and Tony knows that as soon as he awakens, he'll neglect to be this vulnerable and relaxed. Tony takes advantage of the serene calmness that eases into his mind.

Tony pulls back onto his side of the hospital bed and lets out a wet laugh at Peter, even fast asleep and grotesquely injured to a point of guaranteed death, and his ability to beat the odds and inspire hope inside Tony's old, rotten heart.

Lost messages, be damned, Tony Stark will turn the sounds of his love towards Peter Parker  
into an anthem; clarinets and percussion, pianos and forte and melodies telling a story upon an orchestra.

He hears the sound of Peter's laugh and vows a silent, life-or-death promise that he'll only ever hear his kid's symphonies of family and love again.

(Somewhere in the near future, Peter Parker can hear his mentor's pledge to be a better father figure as they gaze into the horizon of tomorrow through a window in upstate New York and feel the sun gleam on their arms, the same way it illuminates a father and son clinging to love.)


	2. Not a chapter

Just reposting

**Author's Note:**

> I have another work in progress and it's way better than this but I need to get this out of the way before I start to hate it.
> 
> We DO NOT acknowledge how all my fics have a hospital scene; we don't address my issues around here.
> 
> ‘This was supposed to be short’ - Me on my third shot of the night days ago.
> 
> Kiiiiiind of thinking of doing another soulmark fic for Tony/Steve. Go read ‘blind hope’ by me and let me know if it's something you'd read.
> 
> Laters babes,  
> \- Reshma


End file.
